Port Forward Alternatives

**damned** · May 1st, 2018, 15:17

Hi Guys - here are a few alternatives if you are unable to do port forwarding on the GMs network connection:

ZeroTier
https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forum...y-Grounds-Game

PureVPN
https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forum...warding-issues

Hamachi
https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forum...ng-Try-Hamachi

AlgoVPN
https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forum...run-an-FG-game

SSH Port Mapping
https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forum...l=1#post376412

Portmap.io
https://www.fantasygrounds.com/forum...y-Grounds-Game

**Weepdrag** · May 1st, 2018, 20:20

Has anyone ever Windscribe (VPN)? and if so, how did you set it up?

**Gwydion** · May 1st, 2018, 21:19

Originally Posted by Weepdrag

Has anyone ever Windscribe (VPN)? and if so, how did you set it up?

It appears from a little searching that port forwarding is on their list of features (not sure if it will be free or not), but at this time it does not appear to offer port-forwarding so I'm not sure this will be an option for FG games at least at this time. The options Damned posted in post #1 are the ones that some of us have tried and been able to get to work.

**pauljmendoza** · May 9th, 2018, 06:47

I may switch to these, there has rarely been a session where everyone was able to make it on or not spend an hour finding out what and where something has changed on their routers or firewalls, or mine. In all the years I have been using FG, this has been a constant frustration. Sorry, just pissed at this problem for the thousandth time.

**Trenloe** · May 10th, 2018, 20:45

Originally Posted by pauljmendoza

I may switch to these, there has rarely been a session where everyone was able to make it on or not spend an hour finding out what and where something has changed on their routers or firewalls, or mine.

If players have had a problem on their end, this may not necessarily make too much of an improvement - it still relies on FG being able to make a connection through to the GM on port 1802. It's just that it's going a different route than normal. If the players had regular issues before, then it may even be worse - as there is now another piece of software involved to get working in their environments (which don't sound too stable to start with).

I hope not, and I hope that this allows you to have uninterrupted gaming!

**Delgarion** · July 1st, 2018, 18:12

A note of thanks for this post I am a GM who had a table top game every sunday for about 9 hours , but had friend who are out of state and wanted to play using a video cam. I initially said no I did not want to mess with that but I started to look at VVT as a way to help Him get his D and D fix. I saw fantasy ground and fell in love with it. Now I'm 60 with a 64 player and a 72 y old and one of about 40 something none of us could figure out the port forwarding ability and I was pretty bummed out about it after spending over 300 to get everything then I found this post and It solved all our problem we are using ZeroTier and It has been great fun for us all again many thanks for this post

**Gwydion** · July 1st, 2018, 18:14

Originally Posted by Delgarion

A note of thanks for this post I am a GM who had a table top game every sunday for about 9 hours , but had friend who are out of state and wanted to play using a video cam. I initially said no I did not want to mess with that but I started to look at VVT as a way to help Him get his D and D fix. I saw fantasy ground and fell in love with it. Now I'm 60 with a 64 player and a 72 y old and one of about 40 something none of us could figure out the port forwarding ability and I was pretty bummed out about it after spending over 300 to get everything then I found this post and It solved all our problem we are using ZeroTier and It has been great fun for us all again many thanks for this post

Welcome to the forum, Delgarion! So great to hear. Glad you got it sorted. Great community. Game on!

**damned** · July 2nd, 2018, 04:00

Hola Delgarion - never too old to be unleasing your Machiavellian schemes on friends!

**ProNobis** · July 5th, 2018, 02:01

I would also recommend Amazon Web Services on demand EC2 program: https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/o...?refid=gs_card
In short, you are renting space on their servers (for about $0.05 per hour for 4 GB RAM and plenty of power to handle FG). Because you are demoting into a computer on a major server cluster, it gets 400 MB per second upload and download. If you can connect to a website you can remote into the computer, and that computer is beyond any fire walls and routers that require port forwarding. Setup a security group to allow port 1802 from everywhere and set Windows Firewall to allow port 1802 and you are up and running. Data transmission rates are really low. Data in from the internet (all those modules you bought, people connecting into your table) is free. The first GB out each month is free, then it is $0.09 per GB after that, I did not go over the 1 GB in my first month. Guesstimating it will take about 20-40 hours of games for my groups to go through a GB, but most of my groups have our data preloaded so we may be lower than most.
Regardless, EC2 is letting me operate behind some pretty heavy fire walls and giving my players much more stable connections than I've ever had before. It may cost a little to get the 4GB RAM, but for the 400 MB/s upload and download I think it is worth it and should be mentioned as an option.

**damned** · July 5th, 2018, 02:35

Hola Pronobis.

The AWS solution costs approx $36/month at 5c an hour. Do you have any tips to get that price down at all?
Also - Im editing your post to change it to 1802 instead of 1080...
You will also need inbound 3389 working so the GM can connect and run.

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